This 1960 Edsel? This is supposedly the original design for the production car. In the eleventh hour, The chairman of Ford demanded that they make the grille look "more like a Pontiac" or so the story goes.
Quite true. They apparently built two prototypes, this 4-door hardtop and a 2-door coupe (à la Galaxie Starliner). I believe one was a runner and the other just a rolling mock-up, but I'm not sure which.
The story I read somewhere was not that they particularly wanted a front end more like a '59 Pontiac but that the bean counters said there wasn't enough money to re-work the 1960 Ford hood to accommodate that Edsel "spike". Which is a bit odd because they came up with the money for a serious re-work of the Ford rear end - arguably a less important part of a car's "image".
So the suspicion has to be that they just wanted to eliminate any trace of the notorious Edsel vertical grille theme. Personally, I like that proposed front end, and if the Edsel nose hadn't become such a national joke, I think it would have been just fine.
Anyway, one Edsel fan saw a picture of the coupe prototype and liked it enough to spend a lot of time and money replicating it. Story below.
Quite true. They apparently built two prototypes, this 4-door hardtop and a 2-door coupe (à la Galaxie Starliner). I believe one was a runner and the other just a rolling mock-up, but I'm not sure which.
The story I read somewhere was not that they particularly wanted a front end more like a '59 Pontiac but that the bean counters said there wasn't enough money to re-work the 1960 Ford hood to accommodate that Edsel "spike". Which is a bit odd because they came up with the money for a serious re-work of the Ford rear end - arguably a less important part of a car's "image".
So the suspicion has to be that they just wanted to eliminate any trace of the notorious Edsel vertical grille theme. Personally, I like that proposed front end, and if the Edsel nose hadn't become such a national joke, I think it would have been just fine.
Anyway, one Edsel fan saw a picture of the coupe prototype and liked it enough to spend a lot of time and money replicating it. Story below.
I do like the front end and the hood. I just don't really like that big vertical bar that's in front of the opening. Maybe it should just have been the same grill pattern design. Anyhow, interesting because I've never heard of this before. Thank you.
I don't mind the prototype Edsel nose treatment, nor do I mind the one Ford went with; it's those "stuck on" tail lights that are completely at odds with the lines of the tail end that have always made me shake my head....what were they thinking? For comparison, here is the 1960 Ford Meteor (Canadian) front and rear, which seems to be quite nice looking IMHO; especially the tail end.
@jkuvakas Yes it was the red convertible. I wasn't aware they officially had a problem with it though, regarding returns and such. I have mine still. My faded recollection of the criticism was simply that the side trim was more of the earlier '60 Galaxie convertible...minimal changes made for the Meteor.
These all look good to me, and especially that design proposal. Although by 1960, Edsel was essentially an offshoot in many ways of the big Ford, some very interesting and nicely done ideas were drawn up as proposals. I saw the images and report of the real re-do of the Edsel and it was excellent. A poor start in a recession year was not possible to overcome and perhaps the name itself was not a plus for it, either.
I don't mind the prototype Edsel nose treatment, nor do I mind the one Ford went with; it's those "stuck on" tail lights that are completely at odds with the lines of the tail end that have always made me shake my head....what were they thinking? For comparison, here is the 1960 Ford Meteor (Canadian) front and rear, which seems to be quite nice looking IMHO; especially the tail end.
Oh yeah, the Ford with the 3 tailight Impala design. I forgot about that one.
I like both the finished example of the '60 Edsel and the "proposed" example of the car. In my opinion, the '60 Edsel was always so much better looking that its Ford counterpart for that year. I was only 9 years old when the Edsel was axed, but I remember just shaking my head and wondering why. Through my little kid eyes, I had really liked the looks of the (then new) 1958 Edsel. I thought it was FoMoCo's best looking cars for '58.
